Visual Essay | Amanda Wang
Have you ever forgotten a tissue in
the washing machine? Then you know all about the chaos it makes on your laundry.
Plastics can mess up our ocean in the same way.
Single-use plastic,
only about a century old, is one of the most durable
and cost-effective materials humans have created. It has been made into versatile products such as shopping bags, water bottles, cutleries, and takeaway boxes. The great advantages it offers revolutionised our lives profoundly, while also leading to a “throwaway trend” (Fava 2022).
Every year, more than 400 million
tonnes of plastic are manufactured, with half of which being single-use products (Marine plastic pollution 2021). Can you imagine that within the minute you’ve spent on this website,
2 million plastic bags have been discarded? This essay unveiled where single-use plastics end up and argued that everyone has the potential to halt the environmental crisis they cause.
​
The report shows that (Sharma, Sharma & Chatterjee 2023),
only 9% of plastic waste is recycled globally. Around 12%
is incinerated, releasing a significant amount of greenhouse
gases along with toxic chemicals. The remaining
of waste is sent to landfills, which, unfortunately,
marks just the starting point of plastic’s universal journey.
79%
Propelled by natural and human factors, about10 million tonnes of plastic find their way into the ocean every year, contributing to 80% of global marine pollution (Yose, Thondhlana & Fraser 2023).
 |  |  |  |  |  |
|---|
Remove the plastics
Once plastics enter the ocean, they become nearly impossible to retrieve. Approximately 65% travel vastly with ocean currents on the surface, which has been found in every marine sample, including the Arctic.
The remaining 35% of them descend to the seafloor due to the composition of high-density materials (Sharma, Sharma & Chatterjee 2023).
Research indicates that by 2050, ocean plastic is expected to outweigh the entire fish population (Fava 2022). Since the wide range of sizes and shapes resembles organisms, plastic debris is often mistaken by marine wildlife as prey, leading to infection, starvation, laceration, and suffocation. According to the report, about have been affected by
false plastic consumption,
with 17% comprising endangered species on the IUCN
Red List. (The Great Pacific Garbage Patch 2022).
700 species
Due to its enduring nature, plastic never disappears even
after a thousand years of degradation. Instead, it breaks into
under the exposure of wind,
currents, and UV radiation.
These invisible fragments spread from the shallow coast to the bottom of the abyss. They adhere to organisms and invade
marine ecosystems through ingestion from both carnivores
and herbivores (Tuuri & Leterme 2023).
microplastic
Neurological Disorders
Immune Complications
Inflammation
Tissue
Injury
Microplastics ripple through the food web and sneak into
our everyday lives. They have been detected in milk, seafood,
tap water, salt, and even the blood of livestock animals (Sharma, Sharma & Chatterjee 2023). According to WWF, the average weight of microplastic we consume weekly is equivalent to a credit card, and the toxic contaminants pose significant risks
to human health (Trethewey 2020). As stated by the executive director of Greenpeace USA, Annie Leonard: “There is no such thing as ‘away’. When we throw anything away, it must go somewhere.” Obviously, the single-use plastic we discard
is coming back to our bodies in the end.
Developmental
Problems
Carcinogenic Impacts
Reproductive Impairments
It may seem like we lack control
over production or recycling policies to stop
this heart-breaking global catastrophe, but in fact,
because single-use plastics are right in our hands.
All we need to do is to replace them with reusable
alternatives, which are readily accessible!
It's us holding the power
Start using your own
today!